As usual no posts for a long time... the promise of regular posts keeps getting broken.. As a result of some nice feedback from a few people about this blog, the promise is made again today... :)
I recently read a very interesting blog about a visit to the passport office. That got me thinking. I recently had an interesting visit to a bank to collect a card... it all started when i logged in to my online account. A large message box popped up saying that a new card had been sent to me but had been returned because i was unavailable. Of course, if they send it to my home address in the middle of a weekday obviously I will be unavailable. The message indicated that i had to collect it from the office directly. Now I did not get any indication that the card was returned. I happened to see the message because i logged in. Anyways the next day i left office early and made my way to the bank. It was a long drive and after a few close shaves, courtsey a BMTC bus and a Bangalore cow i managed to reach the bank. At first look things seemed very ordered and efficient. I went to the token machine try to get myself a token to collect returned cards (which token i should take was clearly put up. That seemed to be a good sign). Then the problems started. The token machine was out of paper(according to the guy standing there) The machine was open and somehow this guy was magically pulling token slips from inside it. Anyway I got my token. Next step was to of course keep staring at the monitors waiting for my number to be called. There were 8 counters and each had an executive doing something. I thought, "Cool, this will finish quickly". Then i noticed that the numbers on the screen were not moving at all. This seemed weird since every counter seemed have executives. Staring at the screen for half an hour seemed to have no impact. I discoved that only one counter was actually catering to the needs of the customers and all the others were busy doing something else. What they were doing i failed to understand since it was anyway bank working hours and my belief was that during works ours servicing customers was their job. Looks like i was wrong there :). Anyway after a long wait one executive came and started taking account number of people who had to collect cards. He became the king and we all crowded around him to get his attention. The poor fellow was quite flustered by the crowd. Still he did manage to get my card and I was atlast able to leave. The last sight as i left was a bunch of customers sitting and patiently looking at the monitor willing it to show their token number.
They say consumer is the king... But i am really not too sure...
